Digg Reader Will Start Rolling Out Next Week, Already Looks Nicer Than Google’s

Full release is slated for June 26.

It’s alive! Digg announced today that its highly anticipated Google Reader replacement will be released next week–just days before the search giant cuts off access to theirs. The Betaworks-powered company’s announcement comes at a curious time as Facebook is reportedly producing a RSS aggregation tool of its own.

In a blog post, the aptly named Digg Reader is described as being “clean, simple, functional, and fast.” The launch will roll out in phases, but everyone will have access to it on June 26. Digg constructed the Reader based on the results from surveys and heard that people want it fast, simple, and with the ability to import feeds and folder from Google Reader.

So, that’s what we’ll get. Judging by the screenshots, Digg Reader will be reminiscent of the homepage of its big brother, and will include a mobile app and support for “key actions like subscribing, sharing, saving and organizing.” A key component will be letting users share and “elevate” (like, voting?) the most important stories to the top, which sounds like the ethos that Digg operates on.

It will be a “freemium” product, with those features listed as free, though the Digg team didn’t reveal which features they might end up charging you for. During the first two months of its release, Digg said it will work on developing an Android app, building integration for third party apps (like Evernote), and making overall improvements.

Digg teases that an “Uber for cronuts” feature will be released later this year, but by that time we hope we’re over the whole cronut thing.